


Port and Starboard

by Hormonal_Trashbag



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Navy, F/M, Mer!Rey, writer pretends she knows what she's doing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 10:32:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11484540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hormonal_Trashbag/pseuds/Hormonal_Trashbag
Summary: The U.S.S. Inflictor appeared first as a cobalt shadow, edges blurred by the millions of gallons of seawater between him and the sunken ship. Not very much sunlight reached beyond a depth of two hundred meters, any deeper and they would be diving into the dysphotic zone.Finally, he confirmed for Hux, “I have visual of the Inflictor. I’m coming up on the starboard bow.”There was a beat, and then: “Damages?”





	1. Chapter 1

Less than five nautical miles off the coast of Oahu, the _U.S.S. Inflictor_ settled on the ocean floor.

A week later, a squad of Navy divers, lead by Master Diver Ben Solo, jokingly named “Kylo, Master of the Knights of Ren,” was ordered to investigate the wreckage for possible salvaging.

He had felt, from the moment he first learned to swim, that he belonged underwater. Ben still remembered the summer afternoons he had spent with his father at Lake Tahoe, mostly spent in the frigid water, swimming laps around his father’s pathetic dingy. He had been captain of the swim team during his senior year of high school. Now he jumped into the water for a living.

He loved it. Regardless of the bureaucracy of military life, Ben loved diving.

His mother wished he had gone to college and become an officer instead, but as far as Ben was concerned, Hux could happily continue to chug away at his administrative position. It was the enlisted guys that worked dives anyway and that was all he cared about.

The wind was down, the water clear; the moment Officer Hux cleared them to start the dive, Ben was leaping into the comforting hold of the Pacific, having triple-checked his gear on the boat ride out. That first moment as his body hit the surface and was quickly embraced by blue and the wild fluttering of bubbles was a bit like falling in love, he suspected.

“Comms check,” Hux barked into his microphone before Ben could even take his first breath.

Bubbles burst beside him as the rest of the squad slid under the waves.

“Solo, check,” he answered.

“Mitaka, check.”

“Phasma, check.”

“Thanisson, check.”

“Storme, check.”

“All clear, proceed two hundred meters to the _U.S.S. Inflictor, 21°15'58.5" North_ by _157°58'19.0" West.”_

With a sharp kick, Ben plunged downward. He could hear the subdued noises of fins churning through water, the five other members of the squad following closely. There was nothing but darkness below them, and if it weren’t for the readings he had seen onboard, Ben might have believed the depths were infinite. Others might have found that daunting; he _thrived_ in the darkness.

The _U.S.S. Inflictor_ appeared first as a cobalt shadow, edges blurred by the millions of gallons of seawater between him and the sunken ship. Not very much sunlight reached beyond a depth of two hundred meters, any deeper and they would be diving into the dysphotic zone.

Finally, he confirmed for Hux, “I have visual of the _Inflictor_. I’m coming up on the starboard bow.”

There was a beat, and then: “Damages?”

Finn Storme, Second Class Diver, responded. “I’m seeing significant damage to the hull on the port beam, Sir.”

Ben was already swimming towards command, pushing open steel doors to navigate the narrow halls. It never ceased to amaze him how quickly life in the ocean took advantage of a wreck. From the corner of his eye, he saw the flash of fins as a fish swam swiftly out of view; Ben favored the mission over exploration.

“How much damage?” Hux snarked, ever impatient to return to shore. It often made Ben wonder why he had chosen the Navy.

Again, Finn answered. “There’s a hole approximately twenty feet along the port beam. I doubt there’s very much chance of refloating her.”

Hux was quick to move along. “Solo, anything on the cargo yet?”

He rolled his eyes. “Negative. Still making my way to the command deck,” Ben replied, then adding, “Phasma, go report on the cargo hold.”

Ben swam through the settled wreckage, ignoring Mitaka’s odd, nervous habit of humming into his comm while working. Down the next corridor he saw another set of fins dart out of sight; by the time he turned his diving light, whatever was lurking in the ship had flit away once more. It wouldn’t do to dawdle.

Command was just as dark as the rest of the ship. The narrow beam of his light sliced through the shadows and he was forced to pause as he passed a navigational computer. There was a black, rectangular hole in the console where the screen should have been, cut wires jutting out and lightly swaying but everything else inexplicably missing. It had been forcibly removed, though how, or more importantly, by _whom,_ was beyond Ben.

It wasn’t the only thing missing. There were multiple screens that had been torn free-- _why?_ Someone had clearly been scavenging, though the most valuable devices had been left behind. Who the hell had done such a shit job of regulating a Navy wreck? He was going to look into it once they returned to base.

This salvage wasn’t going to be nearly as cut and dry as Ben had originally presumed.

“I’ve reached command,” he spoke into the microphone in his regulator. “Everything looks intact but there are several computer screens missing.”

 _“Missing?”_ Hux sputtered back. “Are you sure they didn’t get knocked loose somehow when she hit bottom?”

Ben almost sighed. “No, Sir. But there’s no evidence of that. The wires have been cut and they’re completely gone.”

“Perhaps there’s been civilian salvaging, Sir?” Thanisson wondered aloud.

“Not likely,” Hux growled. “Check everything, Solo. I want a full report of everything that’s been lost.”

“Copy that.”

Ben continued his sweep, only stalling when his light brushed against a shadow huddled in a far corner. Unable to get a clear visual, he kicked towards the shadow impatiently.

It was a tail, he thought. Arms? Hair? No, that had to be seaweed--

Without a thought, he blurted, “Holy shit.”

Tucked into herself, arms curled around a bent tail, was a woman. Her pupils dilated as his diving light illuminated her young face, completely bare of any breathing apparatus. She had no oxygen. Ben blinked, not entirely sure _what_ he was looking at.

An impossibility, he knew.

Slowly, she unfolded one of her arms, her eyes never leaving his. They were wide in panic, her bottom lip trembling as they stared in shocked silence. Her hand reached into the darkness, snatching a staff from where she had propped it against the wall. Carefully, she pulled the fashioned weapon in front of herself in a defensive pose, her other hand gripping the staff and her long tail straightening.

She was a mermaid. A fucking _mermaid_. Disbelief roiled in his gut. Nothing during his training at the NDSTC could have ever prepared him for this.

He glanced along the length of her body, gaze unintentionally catching on the swells of her chest, a chain of shells looped over them. At that, she exposed her teeth in a dangerous snarl.

She whipped past him, shoving him away and hurtling towards the exit at a speed he couldn’t contend with. At a loss, Ben could only watch as she disappeared into the darkness.

It was only then that Ben realized he was being screamed at by Hux.

“Status, Solo!”

He cursed to himself, shaking himself. “I’m fine. There was-- _uh_ \--a huge grouper. Took me by surprise. Status normal.”

Like _hell_ he was going to tell his commanding officer that he had come face-to-face with a goddamned mythical creature.

 

* * *

 

Rey followed it. The man. The rude man that had looked at her like he wanted to throw her on a fire for his next meal--she had _seen_ the way he’d admired the soft meat of her chest. Humans were dangerous. They scooped whole schools of fish from the sea, day after day. Even a predator of her size wasn’t fully safe from them, though she’s never been actively hunted.

He had entered her territory. It had been within her rights to attack him. She had been scavenging here for several days and usually, she wouldn’t hesitate to defend what was _hers_. Yet, meeting his gaze had frozen her in place.

She couldn’t explain it.

Just as she couldn’t explain why she felt the urge to follow him.

The vessel he returned to with the other divers was too fast for her to match, even as she glided through the water at top speed. She gave chase regardless, staying low enough under the surface to remain unseen.

She didn’t stop her pursuit, even once recognizing their heading. They were moving towards land, unsurprising since they could not survive in the ocean indefinitely. She hadn’t approached the shore in years but now that she was following him, she wasn’t going to be deterred.

The surf was low and choppy, short waves breaking as the neared the southern shore of the island. The humans bypassed the beach and traveled through a short canal and into a green harbor, naturally split into three lochs, slippery and iridescent with spilled oil.

They were everywhere, going to and from in every direction. Rey hid behind the stern of his vessel to watch him, now devoid of his mask, march down a ramp to the dock. He and his group left.

Rey waited, though what for, she wasn’t sure.

She was good at waiting. It was all she’s ever known.

 

* * *

 

Ben let the rest of his squad slap his back and joke about him and his grouper. It was easier to pretend that was all he saw, to sit back as Mitaka snickered under his breath, “The great master of the Knights of Ren has been bested by a fish.”

Once Hux dismissed them, he went through the motions of eating (ravenously, much to Phasma’s disgust) and promptly returned to the Hale Ali’i Naval Housing to, quite literally, crash in his bunk.

He dreamt of _her,_ cloaked by the abyss.

Ben found that mildly unhelpful.

When Ben woke, her image still clung to the backs of his eyelids, burnt in place. Try as he might, he wouldn’t be forgetting her anytime soon. Her, or her pretty, little tits.

Unproductive as it was, he spent the next day remembering the shape of her lips and the swish of her tail. He was convinced she was responsible for the missing screens; no one had been given clearance to approach the _U.S.S. Inflictor_ in the week since it had been swallowed by the sea and it had been well monitored. It couldn’t have been an international threat, and she was the only known being to trespass.

Unless there were more of her kind.

Ben wasn’t ready to entertain that idea.

A few missing screens weren’t that vital, really. Hux would make note of it in his long-winded report. Compared to other, salvageable equipment, they weren’t worth much. It would be buried under paperwork and forgotten before long.

Forgotten by all but him.

Knowledge there was a real, living, breathing (well, perhaps not _breathing,_ not in the way he did) mermaid a few knots offshore settled unpleasantly in his chest. In a way, he felt responsible.

Not that there was any conceivable way for him to inform his commander of a mermaid situation. And she was just a fish-woman. She hardly posed a threat to the U.S. Navy. No more than a fucking reef shark would.

Why couldn’t he let it go? Ben was fixated.

Maybe he’d been single for too long. Ben had been stationed at Pearl Harbor for a solid ten months but he had yet to really venture out into the local nightlife. It wasn’t as if he was interested, per say, he simply didn’t have the motivation to wade through tawdry remarks on how large his hands and feet are.

Not that it wasn’t true. He was fairly well-endowed and he knew it.

That was hardly the point.

The point _was,_ it was his day off and all he’d done was play racketball with Finn at the gym (and had lost! He needed to clear his head.) and checked his Facebook to find an embarrassing post his mother had tagged him in.

Admittedly, as senator of New York, making a “support our troops” post was the minimal requirement to at least appear proud of his choices. She was up for re-election soon and appearances were everything.

His uncle was dean of Harvard Law. He could have made it in easily. His mother would forever resent his decision, perhaps because it meant no longer owning him. Ben didn’t regret getting shipped off to Hawai’i in the least.

He needed to get out of his own head, and that wasn’t going to happen if he spent the day lounging indoors. Maybe if he kept in motion, he would be too tired to think about _mermaids,_ of all things.

Ben pulled a tee over his head and tugged a pair of running shorts up the length of his legs. After strapping on sneakers, he jogged to the nearby track. Ben ran in tight loops, following the innermost lane doggedly, until his hamstrings screamed and his chest burned, his heartbeat thudding in his head.

It was a nice, sunny day. The trade winds picked up strands of moist, clumping hair and blew it back, cool against his sweaty, reddened skin. Ben should have put sunscreen on.

Having taken his shirt off during his run, Ben slung it over his shoulder to walk over to the nearby NEX mini mart to scrounge up a quick meal. None of the pre-made bento boxes were all that appealing, he wanted something he wouldn’t have to sit down to eat, but in the warmer were neat rows of small, plastic-wrapped squares of rice and spam, bound by a black strip of nori. Before being stationed in Hawai’i, Ben had never tried spam and it was hardly the most health-conscious choice but something about their easy delivery system and excessive salt content made musubi addictive.

He bought three and was already peeling back the plastic wrap as he exited the mart, teeth sinking into questionable meat and sticky rice. Ben strolled back towards housing, tracing the length of the pier.

His gaze was automatically drawn to the sharp splash to his right and nearly dropped the second half of his musubi.

“What the fuck,” he uttered.

Two round eyes stared back at him from the water, the rest of her face and body still submerged in murky depths. The insane, impossible creature had followed him back to base. What if she was caught, mistaken for a trespassing civilian?

Ben forced himself to take another step. Then, another. She dipped back below the surface and he _knew_ she was following him. Rather than turning towards housing, he continued past, walking by the dry docks and shipyard to the other side of the short peninsula. Every time he looked back at the harbor, she was there.

Nothing quite like being stalked by a mythical creature, he mused, walking down an empty dock and sitting hard on the ledge, legs dangling. He shoved the remainder of his musubi into his mouth and rubbed the back of his hand over his lips when he swallowed. Ben was relatively composed as her head peeked out again.

“So,” he stated. “I didn’t imagine you.”

He didn’t expect a response.

“No.”

It spoke. She was capable of human speech.

“Unless this is some sort of nervous breakdown and I’ve finally lost my mind.”

Her lips pursed, head tilting to one side in a show of confusion. “You’re nervous?”

Ben barked a laugh. She had an English accent. Maybe he had sunstroke.

The sound startled her and she made a skittish dive, tail skimming the surface to expose the spined dorsal fin that ran down the back. She might have been threatening him, he realized belatedly.

He jumped back when she glided up and fully out of the water, forcefully kicking to reach the dock, deceptively strong arms clinging to the edge of the dock. His automatic response was to curl his hands around either of her skinny biceps and lift her, a grunt erupting in his chest as he heaved. She weighed much more than he anticipated.

“I can do it,” she stammered, frightened eyes darting away from his. It occurred to him that this might have been just as strange and otherworldly for her as it was for him.

“Whatever you say, fish lady,” he grumbled back.

She struggled, and in the end, Ben lay flat on his back and she sprawled across his torso, her breasts dripping with seawater as they grazed his bare chest, her wet hair sticking to his neck.

They gawked at each other in still silence, her face looming over his, the width of her silvery tail between his legs.

“It’s Rey,” she mumbled, peering down at him. “Not ‘fish lady.’”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, this trash fic continues! I'm guessing it'll be four-five chapters long.

Ben’s food settled oddly in her stomach, much more filling than anything Rey had eaten in years. She could recognize the taste of seaweed, dried and wrapped around a convenient meal, but she hadn’t eaten rice before and he had said not to ask what spam was. She suspected it was supposed to be a meat of some kind, though the texture seemed... _off,_ somehow.

In the end, nothing felt quite so satisfying between her teeth than a goatfish, fresh enough to still be twitching.

Plutt would likely ask where she had gotten food when he smelled it on her, the damned overweight asshole of a tiger shark. The reef was his territory though, so he had every right to control who ate what, and when. Lesser predators like Rey had no choice but to give into his demands.

Which was why she didn’t live on the reef. She may have needed to return there for food, but she wasn’t going to let Plutt control every aspect of her life. Her sunken gillnetter boat was a short distance from the edge of the reef, with nothing but sea desert between her and the vivid hub of life.

Rey lashed her tail against the choppy waves, heading back out to sea. Ben had been surprisingly pleasant to talk to, perhaps because it had been so long since she had spoken to another intelligent being, but he had warned her against staying in the harbor. There were barracuda lurking in the water and worse than that, she could not be seen by anyone else. The threat of barracuda was enough for Rey to miss her little wreck, the thought of more humans knowing about her was terrifying.

It may have been years since she had seen another of her species but she remembered the stories. Men were not to be trusted, destructive creatures that they were. She couldn’t quite decide what it was about Ben that piqued her curiosity.

After their second encounter, she realized it hadn’t been a hunger to consume her flesh that had drawn his eyes to her. She wouldn’t put it past another human to want to throw her into a fire, though.

Still, everything she had was thanks to the wasteful ways of humans. Plutt fancied himself a king and Rey indulged the ridiculous notion, scavenging for glass and burying it in the sand to create mermaid tears for him to hoard. If he wanted to think they held value, who was she to correct him?

That was why she had ventured into the Navy vessel. It had already been sitting there for a few days and she hadn’t seen anyone go near it. The sheets of glass she had pried from the inner workings of that ship would be feeding her in a few years.

Ben had laughed loudly when she told him the reason for her pillaging. He had made such a warm, light sound and the memory of it had heat coiling in her. It wasn’t fear or nervousness but something closely related. It felt as if her chest had been beached and was soaking in the relentless sun.

Approaching home, she dove deeper, wondering how his eyes had become so soft and brown.

He was curious about her, too. She was no one of real interest, but he had listened to her complain about Plutt.

If she hadn’t been abandoned by this remote island, she would have proper stories to tell. Rey was a migratory creature by nature, but after being left, she had been too young to trace the currents her ancestors had discovered, long before man walked the earth. Now she was strong enough to make such a journey on her own, but no idea of where to go. She hoped that one day her school would return but after years of waiting, doubt had crept in.

She had a mother somewhere in this vast ocean, perhaps sisters of her own, a family. They had to be out there.

Right now, survival was more important. She lived day to day, scrambling for Plutt’s scraps and longing for more.

Ben was a dangerous distraction. She shouldn’t have agreed to meet him again. Yet, Rey wanted to hear his laughter once more, robust and comforting. She wouldn’t linger on the memory of his muscles, firm beneath her when he had pulled her onto the dock.

Had he liked the feeling of their bodies pressed together as much as she had?

It was doubtful. She shook her head, slipping through the entrance of her humble abode.

Rey had cleared out the hull of her gillnetter to make space enough to store other things of value she’s discovered while scavenging. Along the deck of her home, she had transplanted pretty cuttings of coral and sponges, hoping that one day, after she was gone, there would be a new reef where she had once lived.

Even if her people didn’t remember her, the sea surely would.

At the bottom of the hull, a bed of sand waited for her. She shut the open hatch and settled down to rest.

At long last, she felt _safe_.

 

* * *

 

Ben had reached a whole new low.

He wanted to fuck a fish.

There had to be something very wrong with him at a rudimentary level.

He wasn’t even sure _how_ he would fuck her--she had to have some kind of reproduction system (and the fact he was thinking about that made him cringe) but what if she spawned like a fish? It wasn’t like she had legs to keep a pussy between.

Ben knew he was letting this go too far when in a moment of desperation he sat at his laptop and started typing _fish anatomy_ into Google. He had stared in bemusement at the search engine when suggestions popped up, then thankfully gained the good sense to tap on the delete key until the bar was clear.

He supposed he wasn’t the first sailor to run into this predicament. Ben had always assumed it was _dolphins_ that had centuries of seamen swooning at the waves but now? Who was he to judge? He was just another in a long line of men that wanted to stick it in a _fish_.

She was a very pretty fish, but that seemed irrelevant. They were different species. How was wanting to have sex with her any different than some hick that molested sheep? She at least had a pair of nice, soft tits, but still...

And in a moment of stupidity, Ben had suggested they meet again. Because all he needed were more sick fantasies to repress. Spending more time with her would certainly give him that. She had smiled back at him, dimples bracketing her pink lips, and Ben had known he was going down a dark road that he couldn’t return from.

A dark road that might just include those pink lips giving him head underwater. Which should _not_ have been as much of a turn-on as it was.

If she offered, he knew he wasn’t strong enough to say no. Not that she had any reason to offer. Ben doubted she was at all afflicted by this overwhelming desire.

He had to get out of his own head. That would help.

Or so he had hoped. After an hour of swimming laps in the nearby pool, he was winded but his mind had yet to free itself of Rey.

Dripping from the pool, stinking of chlorine, he sloshed his way over to where Finn was housed.

He had thought long and hard about this. Finn was both the least likely to laugh at him for his sudden neediness and the most likely to know a nice, _normal_ girl. The others in his squad, he couldn’t be sure. Maybe if he slept with someone, he wouldn’t feel so hot and bothered by a mermaid.

A small part of him was convinced he was going to wake to an injury and this had all been some wild coma-dream. How could mermaids exist without anyone knowing?

He rapped on the front door with his knuckles, creating a puddle at Finn’s doorstep.

Finn opened the door with a confused look, taking a long moment to take in his swimming jammers and rubber slippers.

“You look,” he paused, searching for the right word to describe Ben, _“panicky._ What’s going on?”

Ben went straight to the point. “I need you to set me up with someone.”

Finn choked on a startled laugh. “What?” He gave him another long look-over and asked, “Did you forget a towel? You’re dripping everywhere.”

“It’ll dry,” he groused. “Can you introduce me to a girl or not?”

Finn crossed his arms, leaning into the doorjamb. “Maybe. If you tell me what the crazy-eyes are for, or why the sudden interest. The entire squad has tried to hook you up at some point or another, did you suddenly become less nitpicky?”

_No,_ he thought wryly. _I’ve just become interested in another goddamned species._

He wasn’t even sure if Rey was considered a mammal or not, for fuck’s sake.

Ben considered him carefully. If he asked Finn to keep this strictly between them, he likely would. Was he really so desperate that he was going to tell about his run-in with a mermaid? He could become viable.

He exhaled slowly. “Fine. But I’m not talking about this in your doorway.”

Finn rolled his eyes and grumbled, “Wait here,” before promptly shutting the door.

A few moments later, he returned with a fresh towel, telling him, “I don’t need you getting the floors wet just because you decided to be melodramatic and didn’t towel off before coming here.”

Ben shucked his slippers at the door, entering with bare feet. He dried himself with perfunctory brushes using the towel, wrapping it around his waist before finally leaving the tiled entrance. Finn’s flat was small and clean, an old couch and to Ben’s infinite amusement, a rocking chair, the only furniture in the main living space.

“What’s this really about?” Finn asked, gesturing towards the couch while he took the chair--at times, he reminded Ben of an old man.

There was no getting around it. Talking to someone would surely help.

“Before I say anything, you can’t laugh. I’m being perfectly serious.”

Finn nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “I’m going to retire by the time you actually talk.”

Ben huffed. “Okay, you remember the grouper I saw on our last dive?”

He had the gall to snort back, “Mitaka is still making jokes about it under his breath when you’re not around. I don’t think any of us will be forgetting it anytime soon.”

Ben ground his teeth. “Well, it wasn’t actually a grouper.”

He paused, steeling himself.

“This dramatic build-up is really entertaining, _Master Kylo,_ but it’d be great if you’d just cut to the chase.”

“It was a mermaid,” he blurted.

Finn stared at him in silence for a long time.

Finally, choosing his words with careful deliberation, he replied. “Ben, be honest with me. Are you on something?”

_“No!”_ he snarled back. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

Finn gave him a _look,_ one eyebrow raised.

“The last thing I want is to get discharged! You _know_ that.”

“Do you think you have a brain tumor or something?”

Ben growled. “No! I’m being serious. She followed me back to base!”

Finn frowned. “You saw her again?”

“Yes. And I agreed to go to this secluded beach to meet her again. Which was stupid, but I have a hard time talking to normal women, never mind pretty, mythical creatures.”

Mute, Finn stood from his rocking chair and stalking towards his tiny kitchen, bending over to rifle through his refrigerator to snatch two Heinekens. He cracked them open and returned, wordlessly handing him one. Sitting back down, he guzzled half of his beer before looking towards Ben again, his expression schooled.

“What does this have to do with me hooking you up with someone?”

Ben shifted uncomfortably, his face warming. Unable to answer, he took a swift swig from his Heineken.

“Oh my _God,_ you want to bang the fish-girl,” he paused, before shaking his head with a snicker. “Does she even have matching parts?”

“This isn’t funny!”

“Oh, contraire,” Finn muttered. “This is downright hilarious. The ever serious _Kylo Ren_ needs to get laid so badly that he’s imagining mermaids.”

Ben sunk back into the couch. He should have known better.

“Tell you what,” Finn said, “an Air Force buddy of mine was going to introduce me to a friend of his. She has a sister that’ll be coming along anyway, do you want to join us?”

Relief flooded him.

Perhaps he could get away unscathed, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are appreciated, as always. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never thought I would write mermaid masturbation, but here we are...

Ben quickly realized that whatever was wrong with him, there was more to it than simply needed to get laid.

Going on a double date--or whatever _this_ was--had been a bad idea. Finn’s so-called Air Force buddy was Poe Dameron, someone Ben already had the misfortune of knowing. His own father had given Dameron private flying lessons, a touchy subject he’d rather not rehash after so many years.

Unfortunately, Dameron had no such qualms. So, Ben sat crammed into a corner with Finn, Dameron happily sandwiched between Rose Tico and her older sister, Paige. His legs were too long (he was convinced the tables were built with Japanese tourists in mind) and his knees were pressed into the underside of the table. He chose to remain silent as Dameron spouted on about _legendary_ Han Solo, best pilot on the East Coast.

_Duke’s_ was a well-known tourist trap, the sort of place Ben would have never gone to voluntarily, had he been of sound mind. He had carefully avoided this part of Honolulu for ten months and now he sat in an overpriced hotel restaurant, staring out into the abysmal, murky waters of Waikiki Bay, wishing he was anywhere but there.

Finn instantly latched onto Rose, which meant he was supposed to talk to Paige. The problem was, naturally, she wasn’t at all interested in him. With Dameron at the table, making moony eyes at anything with legs, Ben could hardly blame her. He knew he wasn’t conventionally handsome, that he came across as gruff and surly, that Dameron was more of a catch. He just couldn’t help wishing they had brought a third girl so he wouldn’t feel like the odd man out.

Finally, a waitress with a bored, forced smile approached their table. “Good evening everyone, my name is Kulana and I’ll be your server. Can I start you with some drinks?”

To no one’s surprise, Dameron shot her an appreciative, flirty smile.

“Mai Tais all around,” he said, before grinning at the table. “They are to _die_ for. More rum than anything else, of course.”

Kulana nodded, jotting the order down.

Ben cleared his throat. “Actually, I’d rather get a beer.”

Dameron was instantly groaning, like the overgrown man-child he was, “You’re such a stick in the mud, Solo. Some things never change. Let me guess: a Bud Light, straight from the bottle?”

Ben bristled at that, frowning as he glanced back down at the beer menu to choose something else, purely out of spite. “Actually, I’ll get something on draft. Is the Longboard Lager any good?”

It was the first beer on the menu and the alliteration had caught his eye more than anything else.

“It’s one of our most popular beers, brewed here in the islands,” she answered, sounding entirely scripted and not at all convincing.

It hardly mattered. “Okay, I’ll give it a try,” he mumbled.

Their drinks arrived and he sunk into obscurity on his seat perfectly contented to be invisible. He tried to talk to Paige for a few minutes. She was a gunner with not much on her mind but planes, planes, planes. Ben couldn’t fault her, since all he was really able to talk about was diving, in turn.

She and Dameron fell into a conversation about the extended use of A-10 Warthogs and Ben drowned it out with lager. Really, he should have expected the non-stop pilot babble. He watched their server flit around the room instead, her black, silky ponytail bobbing with every strut. She was pretty but he didn’t entertain the idea of asking for her number, not when she was very clearly uninterested and it wasn’t worth the effort.

When Kulana returned, Dameron insisted on getting a spread of _pupus_ and sharing. Ben resigned himself, no longer caring enough to make any argument (likely because he was already halfway through his second beer). Finn was clearly enamored and as irritated as Ben The nachos were decent and the calamari good, so he picked at the plates while staring out at the bay, the sky flushing vividly as the sun started to dip below the horizon, somewhere on the other side of Oahu.

_Fuck it,_ he thought, glancing at the soggy remains of the nachos platter and then at the rest of the party.was with him, it was sweet in a sickening way and he didn’t want to be the reason they left early.

_Fuck everything._ Who cared if he wanted to bone a fish woman? Who was it going to hurt? No one.

No one.

Ben grumbled about taking a walk along the beach and didn’t wait for a response. He wasn’t entirely convinced anyone had heard him. At the edge of the sand he kicked off his shoes and rolled up his jeans before drifting down to the lapping waves. Saltwater ran over his toes and soaked the bottom of his jeans but the breeze was cool and most of the tourists were packing up their belongings in favor of exploring Waikiki’s nightlife.

He was gazing across the horizon, toes curling into wet sand when a familiar face broke the surface. Ben fell flat on his backside in shock (and not at all because of the three pints of lager he’d had), startled by the smile that spread across Rey’s face. She was nothing short of stunning, wet hair spread around her shoulders and pink lips shining.

Rey crept towards where the waves were breaking, self consciously keeping her tail under the swirling foam and safely out of sight.

“How did you find me?” he blurted thoughtlessly.

Rey snorted. “Would it be strange if I said I could smell you?”

At this point, nothing was strange anymore. He said just that and her responding peal of laughter was melodic and sweet. Her face crumpled slightly though as if she had momentarily forgotten the reason she had needed to hunt him down. Guilt choked him, he nearly looked away in shame.

“You didn’t meet me,” she quietly told him. “I wanted to show you my favorite beach.”

He nodded his head, rising into a crouch to prevent his pants from getting wetter. “I thought it was best. I’m sorry, I was wrong.”

She considered him carefully. Rey was still smiling, but Ben could tell he had hurt her. “I waited for you all day. Why would you think it was best?”

Ben exhaled. He ran his fingers through his hair, pausing as he realized he was inadvertently spreading sand across it. What was he supposed to say? The truth, he supposed; Ben doubted she would accept anything less.

“Well, uh, you’re cute and I was worried about--about some _biological_ urges I feel when I think about you. Because you’re a different species. And that’s probably wrong but I don’t really care right now.”

She blinked. “Oh.”

Ben cleared his throat. “Yeah. Sorry. I must be disgusting to you--”

Rey’s eyes darted across the sand, satisfied to find they were for the most part alone. Nobody was near enough to notice her tail so she beached herself, wriggling across wet sand to be closer to him.

“You seem to misunderstand a lot about my people,” she informed him. Her nipples were pulling into tight, perky points and it took monumental strength to keep looking at her face instead. “We’re all female.”

He gaped at her dumbly. “So--”

“So if you ask _me,_ there’s nothing disgusting about your--” she quirked a brow at him, “--biological urges. I’d say it’s perfectly natural.”

There was nothing shy about the way her hazel eyes trailed down his torso to settle on his crotch. Ben shuddered under the weight of her gaze, embarrassed as he stiffened within the confines of his jeans. Rey turned red as she watched him swell with arousal, continuing with a whisper.

“Will you meet me again?”

They both knew the answer before he could voice it.

 

* * *

 

He wouldn’t be free again for another six days, he’d said. Ben’s voice had dropped into something low and absolutely decadent. Heat bubbled in her belly at the mere memory of his dark timbre, though the burning neediness had been there constantly, simmering since she last saw him.

She couldn’t be absolutely sure but Rey could guess what was happening, and what had caused it. She had never spent any duration of time around a human male before but it must have triggered this unbearable, hot hunger--a mating cycle.

Her first.

Without an older, experienced mermaid to guide her through her mating cycle, she could only guess at what she needed to do to sooth it. The thought of the bulge she had witnessed grow between his legs made her ache--somehow, she instinctively knew that distension of his body was key.

There was only two more days until they would meet. She hoped she could last until then.

Rey felt vulnerable in a way she had never experienced before. Plutt would be able to smell it on her so it was impossible to return to the reef until the cycle was over, which meant her main source of food was no longer available to her. There were other reefs, but they all had their own predators. Rey would not be welcome, even if she _wasn’t_ stinking of need.

Not even a whole ocean of water could wash away the saccharine scent that emanated from her. The only safe place to wait was in the hull of her wrecked gillnetter. Rey writhed on her bed of sand, desperation turning her mad. The more she tried to imagine mating, the more she burned.

She took deep gulps, trying to calm herself, but she had already sent herself down a spiral of longing. Rey had to do something-- _anything!_

She didn’t realize her hands were smoothing over the underside of her tail until a soft whimper caught in her throat. Her dorsal spines stood rigidly on end, nudging into the sand beneath her as she gently stroked her scales.

Rey sighed as a slit under her abdomen widened, scales retreating to allow the folds of her sex through. She had opened herself once before out of curiosity, had watched a finger disappear into the slick, gripping heat of her body. For a moment she simply looked down at the thin, frilly layers of flesh that burst from her core, delicately floating in the water.

Gnawing on her lower lip, Rey slowly ran a finger through the center, the tip of it catching on a small bundle of nerves that made her tail jerk. She brushed over it again, clamping her mouth shut to keep from crying out.

Eyes glazing over, trembling as she circled her finger around the sensitive pearl, Rey slipped her other hand down, a single finger sinking into her slippery entrance. Her folds were coated with a thick, clear fluid that clung to her flesh and eased the passage of a second finger. She moaned, grinding the raised point of nerves as her slender digits thrust in and out.

It wasn’t quite enough, even as she glided a third finger into her sex. She needed to be filled to the brim, to be stretched nearly to the point of pain and her fingers weren’t going to accomplish that. They couldn’t reach deep enough or pull her muscles taut in the way she _knew_ Ben would be able to.

Rey pictured his chest, as she had seen it the day he had pulled her onto the dock, and his muscular arms coiled around her. Rey had no idea how that swelling bulge of his crotch looked unclothed, but she could imagine him feeling her scales with his long fingers, spreading her open to bury himself in her body.

The heated yearning didn’t slow. It didn’t calm. It burned brighter and urgently as she impatiently worked her fingers through the open channel of her sex. Her tail jerked with uneven motions, her broad fins kicking up sand as she swiftly approached a feeling she couldn’t name or define. She felt magnificent and as if she was being cooked alive all at once, whimpers escaping from the back of her throat.

“Oh, _Ben,”_ she groaned, nearly sobbing as she felt her every muscle clench, her slick sex clamping around her fingers.

She thrashed as sharp ripples of pleasure swept through her with all the strength of a flowing tide, the tender flesh at her center throbbing, white light bursting behind her eyelids.

The edge of oppressive thirst cooled but under the surface, Rey could still feel the low simmer that persisted.

It was just two more days, she told herself, fingers sliding free from her body.

She could last two days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect smut in the next chapter! ;) 
> 
> Little notes about this chapter: I've been to Duke's several times and the calamari is my favorite. I pretty much hate everything about Waikiki, it's basically watered-down Hawaii. Kulana is my step-sister's name. I've always thought it was really pretty. So she became a character.
> 
> Thanks for reading and for your feedback!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not going to pretend that I'm in the Navy, but I tried to do some research. Which is kind of difficult to do, if I'm honest. But my dad, all of my uncles, and both of my grandfathers were in the Navy. I've kinda fantasized about it but let's be real...I probably wouldn't make it through boot camp, haha. 
> 
> My dad was stationed at Pearl Harbor when I was born (though he left the Navy shortly after) and I grew up in Hawaii. So this fic is a really strange labor of love, between all the morphed AUs and the setting. And it's making me nostalgic as hell for home. Also, I want to eat spam musubi now. Hell yeah, questionable meat.
> 
> I'm not sure if this will have smut or not. If so, the rating will change.
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3 Feedback is always appreciated.


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